Why Do We Use Facial Recognition?

Introduction Technology is on an up rise, as is the act of terrorism and other various crimes. Countries such as the United States are taking many precautions to prevent these heinous crimes. One prevention technique that the United States has started using is facial recognition. The freedictionary.com website defines facial recognition as: "biometric identification by scanning a person 's face and matching it against a library of known faces," (The Free Dictionary, 2012) "they used face recognition to spot known terrorists." This paper will help one understand what facial recognition is, who uses facial recognition, and when they use it. This paper will take a look into a couple of cases where facial recognition has been used. Also, it will look into the controversies that happen with the of the facial recognition software. Facial recognition may not be on the top tier of criminal investigations, but it certainly has come a long way since its inception.
Facial Recognition-Who, What, and When? Biometrics is where facial recognition can categorized. According to the Criminal Investigation text book, biometrics is: "the statistical study of biological data and means to positively identify an individual by measuring the person 's unique physical or behavioral characteristics"
Heard 's conviction received him a sentence of twenty five years to life. "Surveillance cameras from a nearby business caught footage of man believed to have shot and killed another in an armed robbery. [Charles Heard 's] defense team submitted still frames from the video footage along with testimony from a biometrics expert who argued that comparisons between current photos and the still frame clearly demonstrate that Charles Heard, the suspect, was not the shooter," (Homeland Security, 2011) but Charles Heard was still found guilty (Homeland Security,